The Odes/Book I

The Odes
Book I
written by Horace

To Lydia: Stop Ruining Sybaris!

Singing of Lalage (Integer Vitae)

I: XXXIV Fortune’s Changes

Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom, a scant and infrequent adorer of gods, now I’m forced to set sail and return, to go back to the paths I abandoned.

For Jupiter, Father of all of the gods, who generally splits the clouds with his lightning, flashing away, drove thundering horses, and his swift chariot, through the clear sky,

till the dull earth, and the wandering rivers, and Styx, and dread Taenarus’ hateful headland, and Atlas’s mountain-summits shook. The god has the power to replace the highest

with the lowest, bring down the famous, and raise the obscure to the heights. And greedy Fortune with her shrill whirring, carries away the crown and delights in setting it, there.

I: XXXV To Fortune

O goddess, who rules our lovely Antium, always ready to lift up our mortal selves, from humble position, or alter proud triumphs to funeral processions,

the poor farmer, in the fields, courts your favour with anxious prayers: you, mistress of ocean, the sailor who cuts the Carpathian Sea, in a Bithynian sailing boat:

you, the fierce Dacian, wandering Scythian, cities, and peoples, and warlike Latium, mothers of barbarous kings, tyrants, clothed in their royal purple, all fear you,

in case you demolish the standing pillar with a careless foot, or the tumultuous crowd incite the peaceful: ‘To arms, to arms’, and shatter the supreme authority.

Grim Necessity always treads before you, and she’s carrying the spikes and the wedges in her bronze hand, and the harsh irons and the molten lead aren’t absent either.

Hope cultivates you, and rarest Loyalty, her hands bound in sacred white, will not refuse her friendship when you, their enemy, desert the great houses plunged in mourning.

But the disloyal mob, and the perjured whores vanish, and friends scatter when they’ve drunk our wine to the lees, unequal to bearing the heavy yoke of all our misfortunes.

Guard our Caesar who’s soon setting off again against the earth’s far-off Britons, and guard the fresh young levies, who’ll scare the East in those regions along the Red Sea’s shores.

Alas, the shame of our scars and wickedness, and our dead brothers. What has our harsh age spared? What sinfulness have we left untried? What have the young men held their hands back from,

in fear of the gods? Where are the altars they’ve left alone? O may you remake our blunt weapons on fresh anvils so we can turn them against the Scythians and the Arabs.

I: XXXVI Numida’s Back Again

With music, and incense, and blood of a bullock, delight in placating the gods that guarded our Numida well, who’s returned safe and sound, from the farthest West, now,

showering a host of kisses on every dear friend, but on none of us more than lovely Lamia, remembering their boyhood spent under the self-same master,

their togas exchanged together. Don’t allow this sweet day to lack a white marker, no end to the wine jars at hand, no rest for our feet in the Salian fashion,

Don’t let wine-heavy Damalis conquer our Bassus in downing the Thracian draughts. Don’t let our feast lack for roses, or the long-lasting parsley, or the brief lilies:

we’ll all cast our decadent eyes on Damalis, but Damalis won’t be parted from that new lover of hers she’s clasping, more tightly than the wandering ivy.

I: XXXVII Cleopatra

Now’s the time for drinking deep, and now’s the time to beat the earth with unfettered feet, the time to set out the gods’ sacred couches, my friends, and prepare a Salian feast.

It would have been wrong, before today, to broach the Caecuban wines from out the ancient bins, while a maddened queen was still plotting the Capitol’s and the empire’s ruin,

with her crowd of deeply-corrupted creatures sick with turpitude, she, violent with hope of all kinds, and intoxicated by Fortune’s favour. But it calmed her frenzy

that scarcely a single ship escaped the flames, and Caesar reduced the distracted thoughts, bred by Mareotic wine, to true fear, pursuing her close as she fled from Rome,

out to capture that deadly monster, bind her, as the sparrow-hawk follows the gentle dove or the swift hunter chases the hare, over the snowy plains of Thessaly.

But she, intending to perish more nobly, showed no sign of womanish fear at the sword, nor did she even attempt to win with her speedy ships to some hidden shore.

And she dared to gaze at her fallen kingdom with a calm face, and touch the poisonous asps with courage, so that she might drink down their dark venom, to the depths of her heart,

growing fiercer still, and resolving to die: scorning to be taken by hostile galleys, and, no ordinary woman, yet queen no longer, be led along in proud triumph.

I: XXXVIII The Simple Myrtle

My child, how I hate Persian ostentation, garlands twined around lime-tree bark displease me: forget your chasing, to find all the places where late roses fade.

You’re eager, take care, that nothing enhances the simple myrtle: it’s not only you that it graces, the servant, but me as I drink, beneath the dark vine.

Index of First Lines

Maecenas, descendant of royal ancestors,6 The Father’s sent enough dread hail7 May the goddess, queen of Cyprus,9 Fierce winter slackens its grip: it’s spring and the west wind’s sweet ……11 What slender boy, Pyrrha, drowned in liquid perfume,12 You should be penned as brave, and a conqueror13 Let others sing in praise of Rhodes, or Mytilene,14 Lydia, by all the gods,16 See how Soracte stands glistening with snowfall,17 Mercury, eloquent grandson of Atlas,18 Leuconoë, don’t ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us,19 What god, man, or hero do you choose to praise. 20 When you, Lydia, start to praise. 22 O ship the fresh tide carries back to sea again.23 While Paris, the traitorous shepherd, her guest,24 O lovelier child of a lovely mother,26 Swift Faunus, the god, will quite often exchange. 27 Cultivate no plant, my Varus, before the rows of sacred vines,28 Cruel Venus, Cupid’s mother,29 Come and drink with me, rough Sabine in cheap cups,30 O tender virgins sing, in praise of Diana,31 The man who is pure of life, and free of sin,32 You run away from me as a fawn does, Chloë,33 What limit, or restraint, should we show at the loss. 34 Now the young men come less often, violently. 35 Friend of the Muses, I’ll throw sadness and fear36 To fight with wine-cups intended for pleasure. 37 You, my Archytas, philosopher, and measurer of land,38 of the sea, of wide sands, are entombed. 38 Iccius, are you gazing with envy, now,40 O Venus, the queen of Cnidos and Paphos,41 What is the poet’s request to Apollo?. 42 I’m called on. O Lyre, if I’ve ever played. 43 Tibullus, don’t grieve too much, when you remember44 Once I wandered, an expert in crazy wisdom,45 O goddess, who rules our lovely Antium,46 Now’s the time for drinking deep, and now’s the time. 49 My child, how I hate Persian ostentation,51

Metres Used in Book I.

The number of syllables most commonly employed in each standard line of the verse is given. This may vary slightly for effect (two beats substituted for three etc.) in a given line.

Alcaic Strophe: 11 (5+6) twice, 9, 10 used in Odes: 9,16,17,26,27,29,31,34,35,37

Sapphic and Adonic: 11(5+6) three times, 5 Odes: 2,10,12,20,22,25,30,32,38

First Asclepiadean: 12 (6+6) all lines Ode: 1

Second Asclepiadean: 8, 12 (6+6), alternating Odes: 3,13,19,36

Third Asclepiadean: 12 (6+6) three times, 8 Odes: 6,15,24,33

Fourth Asclepiadean: 12 (6+6) twice, 7, 8 Odes: 5,14,21,23

Fifth Asclepiadean: 16 (6+4+6) all lines Ode: 11, 18

Alcmanic Strophe: 17 (7+10) or less, 11 or less, alternating Odes: 7,28

First Archilochian: 17 (7+10) or less, 7 alternating Odes: None in Book I

Fourth Archilochian Strophe: 18 (7+11) or less, 11 (5+6) alternating Ode: 4

Second Sapphic Strophe: 7, 15 (5+10) alternating Ode: 8

Trochaic Strophe: 7,11 alternating Odes: None in Book I

Ionic a Minore: 16 twice, 8 Odes: None in Book I